Compromises Limit Appeal of Apple's MacBook Air Laptop

One Door, Three Ports

To see more of the MacBook Air's feature compromises, look no further than the cute flip-down door on the laptop's right side. Upon lowering the door, you can see the MacBook Air offers only three ports: a headphone jack, a USB port, and a micro-DVI port. (And yes, this means that all of those IT professionals who have to carry a sack of Mac display adapters will need to add two new ones to their stock. However, Apple has graciously included two adapters--micro-DVI-to-VGA and micro-DVI-to-DVI--in the box with the MacBook Air.)

However, Apple hasn't compromised when it comes to the MacBook Air's video-out capabilities. They match the MacBook's, including the ability to drive an external monitor as large as Apple's 23-inch Cinema Display (1,920-by-1,200 pixels). It also shares the MacBook's Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor circuitry, which means neither laptop will ever be a gaming powerhouse.

More of a compromise is the pathway by which users can attach peripherals to the MacBook Air: a single USB 2.0 port. First let's address that port on its own merits: if you want to attach more than a single USB device to the MacBook Air, you'll need to invest in a USB 2.0 hub. In a desk-bound configuration, this can actually work quite well. I tested the MacBook Air attached to the USB port of the aforementioned 23-inch Apple Cinema Display, and then on to a Belkin powered four-port USB 2.0 hub. I managed to attach an external hard drive, an iPod, an iPhone, an Apple keyboard, a Kensington trackball, and the MacBook Air's own USB Ethernet adapter, all at once, without any trouble.

However, using USB devices on the road could be more problematic. If you usually count on having two open USB ports on your Mac, you'll need to carefully consider if your working style will still function with only a single port available, or if you'll need to invest in (and carry around) a portable hub.

Keep in mind, too, that the MacBook Air's USB port is also the place where you must connect its SuperDrive (if you need to read or write from optical discs). And If you don't have a USB hub, you'll also need this port for connecting any other peripheral including the Ethernet USB adapter. In other words, that one USB port is going to be awfully popular.

Beyond its sheer. . .singularity, the MacBook Air's USB port has other ramifications. It's also a sign that the MacBook Air is the first Mac in years to eschew FireWire, the once-ubiquitous Apple-created connection technology that now seems to be slowly fading into irrelevance.

The disappearance of FireWire brings up several other issues. If you've invested in a digital camcorder that connects to your Mac via FireWire, and count on being able to pull video off of that camcorder while traveling with a laptop, you'll be out of luck with the MacBook Air. (I wouldn't be surprised if some clever soul is even now inventing a USB-to-FireWire video bridge, but that will be an extra piece of hardware you'd need to buy and carry, even if it does someday appear.)

What's more, without FireWire, there's no "target mode," a feature that lets you mount a laptop's drive on another Mac as if it were an external hard drive. It's a feature that's been around for a long time (dating back to a SCSI version on old PowerBooks), and it's a convenient way to migrate files on and off of laptops, but the MacBook Air just won't do it. (And no, sadly, there's no USB equivalent.)

Here, too, Apple has built new software to mitigate the loss of functionality. A new edition of the Migration Assistant utility, which used to focus on FireWire as a transport mechanism, now lets you transfer files across an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network directly from within the program. Using a network isn't quite as fast as FireWire, but it does work.

The third port on the MacBook Air's door, the headphone jack, is the simplest of the three to comprehend: attach it to a pair of headphones or an external speaker and you'll get sound. That's a key feature, since the MacBook Air's single internal speaker is small, tinny, and unfortunately located in the general vicinity of the arrow keys, in the bottom-right corner of the keyboard.

If your hand happens to be over that area-and mine was more often than not, since that's a natural place for my right hand to be--you'll find that your hand is muffling most of the sounds out of the MacBook Air's speaker. Even if your hands are off, the asymmetrical placement of the speaker simply doesn't feel right, since it places all the aural action happening on your Mac to the far right.

As you might expect with a laptop as small as the MacBook Air, it's a tight fit back there at the port door. And that tight fit leads to some interesting compatibility issues, too. Many devices with integrated USB plugs, such as broadband cards and TV-tuner cards, may not be able to fit in without a short USB extension cable. (My external EVDO modem, from Franklin Wireless, came with such a cable, but it turns out I don't need it--it fits snugly and works like a charm.)

Likewise, many large headphone plugs--the same ones that wouldn't fit in the iPhone's recessed headphone jack--will not fit completely in the MacBook Air's headphone jack. The situation isn't as dire as the iPhone, however--the bulky plug of my Ultimate Ears headphones would plug in far enough for me to hear my iTunes music playing clearly and in stereo. However, the plug didn't seem to be quite well seated enough to fend off numerous high-pitched buzzes and clicks, which were particularly noticeable between tracks. Using an iPhone-style headphone adapter with a small plug seemed to solve those issues.